The recovering drug addict and alcoholic, who founded the Crossroads Centre addiction recovery center on the Caribbean island of Antigua, stopped performing the song written by J.J. Calewhen he first got sober.

"I thought that it might be giving the wrong message to people who were in the same boat as me," Clapton, 61, said.

"But further investigation proved ... the song, if anything, if it's not even ambivalent, it's an anti-drug song. And so I thought that might be a better way to do it, to approach it from a more positive point of view."

Clapton's band shouts out "dirty cocaine" during the song.

Singer Avril Lavignehas agreed that spitting at the paparazzi is probably not a good thing to do. Lavigne issued a statement apologizing after she and her husband, Deryck Whibleyof Sum 41, clashed with some of the pesky photographers in Los Angeles.

However, her apology, posted on her Web site, indicated she "meant no offense" to her fans -- not the paparazzi.